The Cult of Smart
How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice
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Narrated by:
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Sean Patrick Hopkins
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By:
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Fredrik deBoer
About this listen
Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform.
Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved.
In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability.
Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place.
This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.
New York Magazine Best Books of the Year - 2020
A Macmillan Audio production from All Points Books
©2020 Fredrik deBoer (P)2020 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Everyone knows "what's wrong with millennials". Glenn Beck says we've been ruined by "participation trophies". Simon Sinek says we have low self-esteem. An Australian millionaire says millennials could all afford homes if we'd just give up avocado toast. Thanks, millionaire. This millennial is here to prove them all wrong.
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A devastating dream of revolution
- By Kevin Tierney Jr on 11-23-17
By: Malcolm Harris
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The New Education
- How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux
- By: Cathy N. Davidson
- Narrated by: Carolyn Cook
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Our current system of higher education dates to the period from 1865 to 1925, when the nation's new universities created grades and departments, majors and minors, in an attempt to prepare young people for a world transformed by the telegraph and the Model T. As Cathy Davidson argues in The New Education, this approach to education is wholly unsuited to the era of the gig economy.
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Practical Enough / Scholarly Enough
- By Amazon Customer on 07-22-20
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Higher Education in America
- By: Derek Bok
- Narrated by: Steven Cooper
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Higher Education in America is a landmark work - a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the current condition of our colleges and universities from former Harvard president Derek Bok, one of the nation's most-respected education experts. Sweepingly ambitious in scope, this is a deeply informed and balanced assessment of the many strengths as well as the weaknesses of American higher education today.
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Long but not deep
- By ProfGolf on 05-13-16
By: Derek Bok
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The Myth of the Rational Voter
- Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
- By: Bryan Caplan
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
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The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book.
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Refreshing
- By Lyle Wincentsen on 05-12-11
By: Bryan Caplan
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Ghetto
- The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea
- By: Mitchell Duneier
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
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On March 29, 1516, the city council of Venice issued a decree forcing Jews to live in il geto - a closed quarter named for the copper foundry that once occupied the area. The term stuck. In this sweeping and original interpretation, Mitchell Duneier traces the idea of the ghetto from its beginnings in the 16th century and its revival by the Nazis to the present. As Duneier shows, we cannot understand the entanglements of race, poverty, and place in America today without recalling the history of the ghetto in Europe, as well as later efforts to understand the problems of the American city.
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Impressive
- By Jean on 12-10-16
By: Mitchell Duneier
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The Genetic Lottery
- Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
- By: Kathryn Paige Harden
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
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In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces listeners to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society.
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Mix of Genetic Science and Ideology
- By James on 10-12-21
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The Complacent Class
- The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
- By: Tyler Cowen
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
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Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs. The problem, according to legendary blogger, economist, and best-selling author Tyler Cowen, is that Americans today have broken from this tradition - we're working harder than ever to avoid change.
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MUST READ
- By RJW on 05-06-17
By: Tyler Cowen
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Creative Schools
- The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education
- By: Lou Aronica, Ken Robinson
- Narrated by: Ken Robinson PhD
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
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Ken Robinson is one of the world's most influential voices in education, and his 2006 TED Talk on the subject is the most viewed in the organization's history. Now, the internationally recognized leader on creativity and human potential focuses on one of the most critical issues of our time: how to transform the nation's troubled educational system.
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The Answer to Why Students Stop Trying
- By Alison Sattler on 07-21-15
By: Lou Aronica, and others
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How to Educate a Citizen
- The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation
- By: E. D. Hirsch
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In How to Educate a Citizen, E.D. Hirsch continues the conversation he began 30 years ago with his classic best seller Cultural Literacy, urging America’s public schools, particularly at the elementary level, to educate our children more effectively to help heal and preserve the nation. Since the 1960s, our schools have been relying on “child-centered learning”. History, geography, science, civics, and other essential knowledge have been dumbed down by vacuous learning “techniques” and “values-based” curricula.
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Practice in Reserving Judgement
- By Audrey on 01-12-24
By: E. D. Hirsch
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Author is not an expert on the subject
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How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch
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Harry Cliff - a University of Cambridge particle physicist and researcher on the Large Hadron Collider - sets out in pursuit of answers. He ventures to the largest underground research facility in the world, deep beneath Italy's Gran Sasso mountains, where scientists gaze into the heart of the Sun using the most elusive of particles, the ghostly neutrino. He visits CERN in Switzerland to explore the "Antimatter Factory," where the stuff of science fiction is manufactured daily (and we're close to knowing whether it falls up).
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Down the rabbit hole in a most fascinating way!
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Scholars of Mayhem
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When Daniel Guiet was a child and his family moved country, as they frequently did, his father had one possession, a tin bread box, that always made the trip. Daniel was admonished never to touch the box, but one day he couldn't resist. What he found astonished him: a .45 automatic and five full clips; three slim knives; a length of wire with a wooden handle at each end; thin pieces of paper with random numbers on them; several passports with his father's photograph, each bearing a different name.
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Better than fiction!
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The Family Nest Egg
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Excellent Estate Planning Book
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Saving Grace
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Grace Saved 🙏🏽🙌🏽
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What listeners say about The Cult of Smart
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joel C Miller
- 03-27-24
Contradicting ideas
The core of this book is most entertaining, once you get past the political propaganda. The idea that no two humans are the same, including our intellectual abilities is a valid point oftentimes overlooked. This book would be better served if it focused on the science of this fact, and how it may affect individuals in our current world as opposed to using it as a tool to expound radical beliefs. Even past the contradictions, I would still suggest it as a good read.
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- Christopher Fons
- 01-30-23
This book will challenge your core ideas.
DeBoer is an independent thinker and fantastic researcher. I strongly recommend this book. He will make you reconsider some of your key values.
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- Robert A Westfall
- 08-26-20
fantastic
This is a really excellent explanation of the failures of our education system, the larger related failures of our society, and a compelling vision for a better world. It also challenges the left to examine our own received wisdom and ask if our assumptions are indeed supported by evidence and, crucially, if they actually support our real goals. On a personal note, I grew up deeply enmeshed in the cult of smart and the college admissions meat grinder. It set me up for a life of reasonable professional class comfort but did little to make me a good or emotionally fulfilled person, and I can only imagine the harm it continues to do to the people it leaves behind. I wish I had grown up in the world Freddie describes in the last chapter.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-10-22
New take on tires solutions
An incredibly pessimistic book, though admirably honest when assessing the realities of life as it exists today. When we arrive at the solution section it’s rehashed large ticket, utopian, social spending silliness. Author advocates for free college which will push more people into university after he spends a great deal of effort saying that most do not belong in college. Very limited understanding of economics on authors part. The idea that a UBI will allow the flowering of the hidden class of poets is laughable. He advocates the removal of all struggle, which displays his sympathy, but has never led to the type of society he dreams of, the conclusion is overly rosy. Author suggests an adjustment to living a bare subsistence existence and he expects the world to bloom. Also the idea of a government run program being more efficient because it can eliminate bureaucracy is a fallacy that will not fall away.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rachel Comstock
- 11-21-23
Profound
Amazing book. Well written, hard to hear, but easy to listen to. Freddie shares his point of view in a way that makes it feel profound and yet obvious all at once!
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- Nick Peralta
- 09-08-21
The Author comes so close!
He comes so close to understanding that the government he wants to control everything is the one causing the problems he correctly identifies. better books on the same subject are 'The Case Against Education' and 'Weapons of Mass Instruction.'
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4 people found this helpful
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- Patrick B
- 09-15-20
Great analysis, poor ending
The audiobook was well read and well written. He provided a great analysis of the issues plaguing education and personal success in America today. He does a really good job dealing with IQ science while dismissing its racist tendencies. If the IQ science is accurate, we as a society must do something about it. The final 2 chapters which are supposed to be solutions were less than helpful. He essentially says do away with markets and instill communism. I was really hoping for a more moderate and realistic proposal of many applicable changes. He gave a view and then focuses the majority of the time on communism.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Seyed Arash Sheikholeslam
- 06-26-22
cult like socialist promises
The author correctly identifies issues and deficiencies with merit based ranking system, charter school system and what he refers to as the cult of smart but then proceeds with typical leftist cult like promises and unfalsifiable assertions about the leftist utopia. doing so, he makes up false history about the root causes of Russian revolution.
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3 people found this helpful
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- M.P.
- 10-04-24
Not my America
I disliked the whole thought process. It’s good to know what other people are thinking.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-28-20
Part of the Content from Human Diversity
This book is kind of a light weight repetition of part of the wisdom contained in Charles Murray's book human diversity. It was entertaining to listen to a real marxist repeat the bromides that took every country that tried them to tyranny. I would recommend reading human diversity, a much better book.
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8 people found this helpful